Vh1 News: Aging Rockers Get Older

If there's anything that can be gleaned from the debut subject of Where Are They Now?, VH1's new series, it is that the so-called "bad boys of rock" aren't so bad any more.

Where are they now? They're kicking back, looking older and slightly less rough than in their rambunctious days.

But that's pretty much all you'll get from this installment. A lot of the "where-are-they-now" mystery isn't mysterious to anyone who reads newspapers or magazines or watches entertainment news shows.

"Motor City Madman" Ted Nugent is a big hunting nut. "Soul Brother No. 1" James Brown is still touring and controlling urges to shoot up office buildings. Former Van Halen clown David Lee "Diamond Dave" Roth has his own band, fell out with his former mates before a reunion could even effectively get under way, and is wearing bangs to hide a receding hairline.

Leave it to Roth to provide some minor sparks on Where Are They Now? which premiered Tuesday and encores at 9 p.m. Friday on the almost-but-not-all-music-video channel.

"Cut," Roth says while being interviewed. "I don't want to be part of a segment that's reviewing is that what we're doing?" He pouts as he gets up and starts to unhook his microphone.

That's exactly what VH1 is doing, Dave: taking its occasional series of specials on what past icons are doing these days and turning it into a weekly excursion into nostalgia, highlighted with videos, old and new interview clips and other story enhancements.

For the unknowing, Twisted Sister's cross-dressing front man Dee Snider is a radio host who also wrote and starred in a movie called Strangeland (he says his "Twisted" days hid a man with "severe psychological problems" he claims came with his wearing "heels and stockings and hot pants"); former New Kid on the Block Donnie Wahlberg once torched a hotel hallway but is now an actor like his brother Mark; and original Goth king Alice Cooper is a 50-year-old avid golfer.

Hopefully, upcoming segments on video-friendly rockers, disco stars and others, will be more revealing.

But, as always, it is the videos shown on this and other VH1 series that provide special satisfaction. Quick hits on Billy Idol's White Wedding, James Brown's Living in America, Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It and others are a grin-inducing blast.

Hey, here's a novel idea: Why not take those and other videos, string them together and run them for several hours during the day?

Nah. Wouldn't work.

PPV boosts Titanic

Three months after its release, the Titanic video was well on its way to the bottom of the charts -- until a rival movie-delivery medium, pay-per-view TV, inadvertently made it one of the top-selling videos again.

"Ironically," reported Variety, "the Titanic video retail surge is being fueled in part by a promotional blitz surrounding the title's debut on pay-per-view systems."

Paramount released Titanic on videocassette Sept. 1 and has sold millions of copies this fall. Titanic debuted on cable and satellite TV pay-per-view systems around the country Nov. 29, the Sunday of the long Thanksgiving weekend.

The promotional campaign for the first TV showings, according to Paramount marketing excecutive Michael Arkin, "functions just like advertising for the video."

It reminded consumers that Titanic was already available on video, at the start of the holiday shopping season.

The 3-month-old title jumped from No. 6 to No. 2 on the weekly video sales chart published by Video Business and from No. 8 to No. 3 on VideoScan's sales chart.